Pre-med student switches gears to teach in Chicago school

After a trying start, Northwestern grad begins to reach students

March 08, 2010|By Dawn Turner Trice

Throughout Joseph Lee's childhood, his parents believed they were grooming a future doctor. But last year when Lee was a senior and pre-med major at Northwestern University, something was gnawing at him.

"I had taken the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) and I had my volunteer hours," said Lee, 22. "I was moments away from applying to a school, but I just couldn't do it."

Lee told his parents that he really aspired to be a teacher. And not in a school that was similar to the cushy ones he'd attended. He wanted to teach in a school where students had little to nothing: abysmal test scores, scant support at home, few people who still believed in them.

"My parents thought I was crazy," he said, laughing. "In many Asian families, you raise your first child sternly. But the second child, for some reason, has a lot more freedom. I was that second child." Lee's brother now is in medical school.

Since the beginning of the school year, Lee has been teaching at Parkside Community Academy, an elementary school in the South Shore neighborhood. Hired a week before school started, he was told that he'd have to teach science but warned there were no textbooks. He had to teach social studies, for which there were books but little time. He also had to teach reading, and recently math was added to the list.

When Lee arrived in Room 312, the walls were barren and dusty. Old cabinets littered the corners. So he set out to patch over some of the inequities. He added motivational posters, including one listing his expectations, and he built a wall of fame for students' achievements.

Soon his 30 students — a group of seventh- and eighth-graders — arrived.

"It was so hard in the beginning," he said. "Many of my students had no supplies. They didn't do homework, and they were often suspended for either fighting or bringing drugs to school. Emotionally I was a wreck and on the verge of tears every day. I wasn't getting any sleep, and I was wondering: Can I do this?"

While Lee was overwhelmed by his new job, he didn't enter it naively. He grew up in the Albany Park neighborhood, where his parents, South Korean immigrants, always helped the down-and-out. His father is a pastor of a Presbyterian church. His mother is a social worker who has mentored prisoners.

Lee attended Northside College Prep for high school and was on the basketball team. (His 6-foot-1 muscular frame makes him a more convincing authority figure with students.) He recalls visiting other city high schools for games and realizing they weren't as well-heeled as his own.

"I traveled to schools where classes were held in hallways," he said. "It didn't make sense to me, but I wasn't unaware of the gross income disparities and inequalities."

Before transferring to Northwestern, Lee spent a year at the University of Michigan, where he participated in the America Reads program working in some of Detroit's most beleaguered schools. The experience inspired him to apply to Teach for America, which is how he got his Parkside job.

Lee told me that while he was prepared for some things, he wasn't prepared for the entrenched bureaucracy.

"You know the social problems. But it's not just that," he said. "It's the school system's inadequacies. It's the budget constraints. It's the No Child Left Behind law. It's the almost exclusive focus on reading and math for standardized testing. Sometimes, it's bad administrators or a system so thick with bureaucracy it's almost impossible to get through."

Seven months into his new job, Lee has seen changes. Earlier in the school year, he wrote lots of detentions. He doesn't write nearly as many anymore because students are better at obeying the rules. Once when he showed his students their low test scores compared to other students, they asked if he thought white students were better than they were. He assured them that he didn't, but they needed to place a higher premium on their education.

Initially, students doubted he'd stick around. He said they don't anymore because he has shown them a type of "unconditional love," which he said is rooted in his deep belief and faith in God. He said love helps on days when the children take him to the limit.

"It would be a lie to say things are perfect," he said. "But on most days, 85 percent of my students are on task and engaged in learning."

Lee has a two-year commitment with Teach for America. Afterward, he may go to medical school. He may continue in education. And while his parents have become more accepting of his current choice, they, too, have taken a wait-and-see approach.

"They realize this experience changes the lives of students and the teachers," he said. "My students and I are on this journey of change together, and that's what makes it all worth it in the end."